Indholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2025 i Art Guide Australia

A profound power of art is its capacity to open doors to new ways of seeing and understanding the world. This issue highlights some artists and exhibitions inviting viewers to consider things differently. The paintings of poet and artist Lionel Fogarty, a Yugambeh man born on Wakka Wakka land in South East Queensland, light up the cover of this issue. As Timmah Ball reveals, Fogarty is using painting to transform and elevate the written word—connecting his poetry, informed by a lifetime of activism, with new audiences. At the National Art School in Sydney, the exhibition The Neighbour at the Gate brings to light historic and ongoing ties between Indigenous and Asian-Australian communities, as Emma Do explains. Elsewhere, American artist Tschabalala Self speaks to Oliver Giles on the occasion of her…

Desert Mob 2025 Araluen Arts Cultural Precinct 11 September—26 October Returning to Mparntwe/Alice Springs this September, Desert Mob stands as a vital marker on the national cultural calendar—the longest-running Aboriginal art event after the Telstra NATSIAAs, and one of the most fiercely community-driven. Now in its 34th year, the festival brings together 35 art centres from across Central Australia, under the curatorial stewardship of Hetti Perkins and Aspen Beattie, to celebrate the strength, innovation, and cultural leadership of desert artists and their communities. The festival continues to uphold its artist-led ethos. As Beattie explains, “There is a real focus on artist-led and run projects.” A highlight is the proliferation of works on paper, including a monumental collaborative work by 12 artists from the Northern Territory’s Barkly region, led by artist…

New commissions Newcastle Art Gallery From 26 September Maggie Hensel-Brown has a hard rule, working with needle lace: “I don’t make anything practical,” she says. “Nothing you can wear. Nothing you can use.” But when Newcastle Art Gallery approached her with a commission for a new, large-scale work to celebrate its reopening following an extensive capital works expansion, there were some inevitable practicalities. “I don’t usually do commissions but because it’s my hometown gallery, it felt special to take this one.” Hensel-Brown’s large-scale work for the windows on Newcastle’s busy Darby Street is one of several major new commissions by the Gallery, alongside works by Fayen d’Evie and fellow Novocastrian and Awabakal descendent Shellie Smith. Major acquisitions include Megan Cope’s acclaimed Kinyingarra Guwinyanba (Off Country) (2022), which will suspend 44…

Fran Lebowitz has always been rather vocal about the fact that she found Robert Mapplethorpe annoying. She famously recalled, for example, how Mapplethorpe would regularly gift her photographs only for her to then throw them away. “In those days the trashcans in New York were made of metal, and they were out in the street. This was in 1979; you had to bring your trash down to the street, and put it in these metal cans. There were so many of these Mapplethorpe photographs that I couldn’t get them into the can,” Lebowitz told art dealer Gracie Mansion in 2018. Of course, Lebowitz laments this frivolous action now. Whether Mapplethorpe was indeed as annoying as Lebowitz claims (see Patti Smith’s Just Kids for the reverse perspective), what cannot be disputed…

Annandale Galleries www.annandalegalleries.com.au Gadigal Country, 110 Trafalgar Street, Annandale, Sydney, NSW 2038 [Map 7] 02 9552 1699 Wed to Sat 11am–4pm. Through varying styles and contexts the aim of Annandale Galleries is to show the best of Australian and international contemporary art. Recent exhibitions have included a range of artists recognised and revered the world over. Artbank Sydney www.artbank.gov.au 222 Young Street, Waterloo, NSW 2017 [Map 9] 02 9697 6000 Tue to Fri 12noon–4pm, or by appointment for all leasing requirements. See our website for latest information. 28 August—24 October Artbank Window Gallery: Art Text/Text Art: 45 years of visual story telling Abdulla, Davida Allen, Darcey Bella Arnold, Mitch Cairns, Scott Duncan, Fiona Hall, Chayni Henry, Nyurpaya Kaika, Heather Koowootha, Michael Lindeman, Alasdair McLuckie, Noel McKenna, Mary Pan, Tom Polo,…

TIMMAH BALL is a writer of Ballardong Noongar heritage who is influenced by studying and working in the field of urban planning. Her writing has appeared in a range of anthologies and literary journals. ANNA CARLSSON is a writer born in South Korea, raised in Warrnambool but now resides on Wurundjeri land. She has a background in publishing with an arts and cultural focus and is co-writer of the Substack, Pleasure Principle. OSLO DAVIS is an illustrator, cartoonist and artist who has drawn for The New York Times, The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, Meanjin, SBS and The Guardian, as well as the National Gallery of Victoria, Golden Plains and State Library Victoria, among many others. Oslo’s latest book is Oslo’s Melbourne. EMMA DO is a writer and editor…

to come together as water University of Queensland Art Museum Until 6 December to come together as water is the most recent iteration of Blue Assembly—the University of Queensland Art Museum’s multi-year project exploring our relationship to the ocean. Curated by Freja Carmichael, it calls for First Nations sovereignty over waterways. The exhibition offers expansive and personal experiences of ecological change and its impact. A video work from Jilamara Arts sees 30 artists perform their totems. Carmichael explains, “Through these totemic systems, different parts work together to support ecological balance.” Brian Robertson’s linocut illustrates connections between Country, culture and people. Megan Cope’s oyster-poles draw attention to the cultural and ecological significance of oyster reefs. Lucy Simpson’s installation highlights the vital role of freshwater mussels in culture and water protection. In…

Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori: Mundamurra Ngijinda Dulk—My Island Home Cairns Art Gallery 13 September—30 November Mundamurra Ngijinda Dulk—My Island Home is a landmark exhibition dedicated to the late Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, one of the most singular voices in Australian contemporary painting. The exhibition marks Cairns Art Gallery’s 30th anniversary and represents the first major presentation of Gabori’s work in a Far North Queensland art museum. At its core is Dibirdibi Country (2009), a rare and significant painting recently acquired for the Gallery’s collection. The work pays tribute to the ancestral Country of Gabori’s late husband, Kabarrarjingathi Bulthuku Pat Gabori, and references Dibirdibi, the Rock Cod Ancestor. Employing a vibrant palette, the painting evokes the fish traps and sea Country of Bentinck Island. Its gestural brushwork and dynamic colour relationships speak…

When Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello gathers molten glass from the furnace, she is thinking about Country. Specifically, the exquisite desert plains surrounding Hookeys Waterhole near Oodnadatta in South Australia, where her father was born. “That Country is Stone Country,” she says. “Red and purple and brown pebbles crunch underfoot, the soil is fine and dusty, and the horizons go on forever.” Martiniello has spent decades crafting an art practice that weaves together memory, heritage and form. Her multidisciplinary career—spanning sculpture, drawing, writing, teaching and cultural advocacy—is rooted in deep cultural knowledge and lived experience. Now based in Kamberri/Canberra, she is widely recognised for her blown glass works that reimagine traditional woven forms like fish traps and dilly bags. These pieces are physically and conceptually layered, drawing from her Arrernte, Chinese, and…

The body is a site of exploration, curiosity and ability; of challenge, frustration and possibility. Each body is individual, yet there is something that links us all: the sameness and variety that makes human existence profoundly, endlessly fascinating. Embodied, the first iteration of Arts Project Australia’s new exhibition series, Limitless, sees artists Bronwyn Hack and Mark Smith create their most ambitious works yet, with the body at the centre of it all. “The curatorial premise is around the body not just as a subject, but as a way of working: imperfect, sensory, vulnerable, honest,” says curator Jo Salt. Both artists have long-term relationships with Arts Project Australia—Smith has worked from the Melbourne-based studio since 2003, and Hack since 2011. Salt sensed that both artists were ready to “go bigger in…

In Shinto belief, there are countless deities or gods threaded through existence in nature and man-made objects. Such were the early lessons for Kyoko Hashimoto, born in a small seaside town in Shizuoka prefecture near Mount Fuji in central Japan. Her maternal grandmother would prepare and serve traditional osechi-ryōri dishes each new year, each ingredient imbued with spiritual meaning and renewed wishes for health and abundance. When she was 11, Hashimoto’s parents, both ceramicists, decided to leave Japan for Australia, her father’s interest in Western cultures piqued first in childhood when attending kindergarten at Tokyo’s American School then as an adult when his best friend wed an Australian. Yet Shinto philosophy, “stayed with me, that introduction to the world”, says their sculptor, jeweller and painter daughter, now 45, looking back…

Araluen Arts Centre, Mparntwe www.araluenartscentre.nt.gov.au 61 Larapinta Drive, Mparntwe/Alice Springs, NT 0870 08 8951 1122 Open daily 10am–4pm. The Araluen Arts Centre operates as the visual art and performance hub of Central Australia, presenting an annual program of exhibitions, performances, and film. Known as the keeping place of stories, Araluen holds within its spaces some of the most significant works of art in Central Australia and brings to the stage world class performances from around the nation (and at times the world). 3 July–2026 Deviate Araluen Collection This exhibition primarily draws from the Araluen Art Collection and considers artists who push the boundaries – depart from an established course – to challenge traditional art-making techniques and enable new outcomes to emerge. The artists captivate us with their diverse processes that…

Shapeshifting: The Art of Helen Wright Queen Victoria Museum and Gallery: Art Gallery at Royal Park Until 1 February 2026 Looking back at the career of Helen Wright, curator Kellie Wells describes the Tasmanian artist as “an explorer at heart”. Freely experimenting across drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture, Wright has maintained a steady focus on the natural world and dreamlike states for four decades, with architecture, birds and animals frequently becoming her delicately rendered protagonists. Throughout the over 50 works included, Wright’s seemingly effortless ability to shift between materials and disparate meanings is clearly revealed. “Wright’s Vessel and Ruin motifs reflect this deeply,” says Wells. “Woven through decades-long contemplations are repeated sites of collapse, containment, and metamorphosis—each one simultaneously feminine and universal. The recurring avian figures suggest both vulnerability and…

Second Generation Collective: Vádye Eshgh (Valley of Love) Perth Institute of Contemporary Art 17 October—21 December Formed in 2020 by Iranian-Australian Bahá’í video artist Elham Eshraghian-Haakansson and performer, theatre-maker and musician Asha Kiani, Second Generation Collective aims “to illuminate and celebrate the profound beauty, complexity, and diversity of Iranian culture—its art, people, and spiritual depth—far beyond the narrow frames [through which] it can be viewed or depicted. Iran is not a monolith but a rich tapestry of communities, languages, and evolving traditions,” explains Eshraghian-Haakansson. The result of a creative development with Western Australian artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, the exhibition Vádye Eshgh (The Valley of Love) will feature work by an expanded Collective in an immersive weaving of poetry, moving text, dance, music, moving image, and theatre to reveal journeys of fleeing…

Place Makers Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery 27 September—6 December Curator Lee Kinsella is deeply familiar with the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art at the University of Western Australia (UWA). As the holder of this collection, most of the exhibitions at UWA’s Lawrence Wilson Gallery have found their anchor points in this eclectic assemblage of works. Place Makers also draws from it, but for Kinsella, the opportunity to situate these works—by Gladys Milroy, Margaret Morgan, Fiona Foley and the late Edith Trethowan—in conversation with each other, and with their more contemporary works, invited an important reframing of them as remarkable creatives who just happen to be female. Trethowan’s 1920s revivalist woodblock prints capture both a burgeoning Perth and Fremantle, as well as the minutiae of domestic life. Nonagenarian Milroy’s drawings are…

Describe your practice in one sentence? Curiosity-driven experimentation, anchored in the search for connection. Your first art love? I was about six years old when I found a book on Leonardo da Vinci. The images captivated me. I had drawn a swan the year before and impressed my classmates, and that feeling of value was a balm to my neurodivergent differences. I taught myself to draw by copying from this book. His visual language guided me in an accessible way. When is the best time of day for creating? For painting, either from 7pm or from 3am. There is something about these times being quiet and liminal that allows pressures, expectations and external thoughts to dissolve. For conceiving a new idea or solving a visual problem in an existing work,…

ACAE Gallery www.acaearts.com.au Wurundjeri Country, Australasian Cultural Arts Exchange, 82A Wellington Street, Collingwood, VIC 3066 [Map 3] 0406 711 378 Tue to Sun 10am–5pm. Alcaston Gallery www.alcastongallery.com.au 84 William Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000 [Map 2] 03 8849 9668 Thu 12noon–6pm or by appointment. Anna Schwartz Gallery www.annaschwartzgallery.com 185 Flinders Lane, Woiwurung Country, Melbourne, VIC 3000 [Map 2] Wed to Fri 12noon–5pm, Sat 1pm–5pm. 29 August—11 October  WORD WORK Rose Nolan Art Gallery of Ballarat www.artgalleryofballarat.com.au 40 Lydiard Street North, Wathaurong Country, Ballarat, VIC 3350 [Map 1] 03 5320 5858 The Art Gallery of Ballarat is closed for interior upgrades. Off-site programming continues at Backspace Gallery and on the Art Screen in Alfred Deakin Place. 23 August—19 October Guma Leicolhn McKellar Art Screen, Alfred Deakin Place, Ballarat. Guma means blood in…

Aarwun Gallery www.aarwungallery.com.au Ngunnawal Country, 11 Federation Square, Gold Creek, Nicholls, ACT 2913 [Map 16] 0499 107 887 Daily 10am–4.30pm and by appointment in the evening. 19 September—12 October Ken Knight Solo Exhibition Artists Shed www.artistshed.com.au 1–3/88 Wollongong Street (lower), Fyshwick, ACT 2609 0418 237 766 Tue to Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 11am–4pm. A private gallery by award-winning artist Margaret Hadfield. The ‘Shed’ is a resourceful arts business with quality art materials, art school and gallery. Margaret’s works are on display with local and ‘Shed Artists’ as well. Margaret paints in most mediums and the gallery features her works on military history, Antarctica and Australian landscapes. Study pieces can be acquired for a bargain. Australian National Capital Artists (ANCA) Gallery www.anca.net.au 1 Rosevear Place, (corner Antill street), Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country, Dickson, ACT…

Art Collective WA www.artcollectivewa.com.au Whadjuk Country, 2/565 Hay Street, Cathedral Square, Perth, WA 6000 [Map 19] 08 9325 7237 Wed to Fri 11am–4pm, Sat 12pm–4pm, or by appointment. 9 August—13 September  Aeon Cathy Blanchflower Cathy Blanchflower unveils a series of new paintings alive with movement, colour, and light. Flecks and pools of pigment drift across layered gestural marks, forming organic, ever-shifting fields that hover between stillness and flux. The exhibition brings together recent works from her ongoing Lithic series and paintings created during a 2025 residency in Bangkok, Thailand – each one tracing a quiet dialogue between sensation, memory and form. 9 August—13 September Road Trip Continued Eveline Kotai Panoramic paintings by Eveline Kotai trace a journey through the seasonal Karri forests of Margaret River. The works depict a changing…

MAPS 1 VICTORIA 1 Ararat Gallery TAMA 2 Art Gallery of Ballarat 3 Artpuff 4 Arts Space Wodonga 5 Benalla Art Gallery 6 Bendigo Art Gallery 7 Bendigo Visitor Centre 8 Cascade Art Gallery 9 Castlemaine Art Gallery 10 Central Goldfields Art Gallery 11 The Convent Daylesford 12 Cusack & Cusack 13 East Gippsland Art Gallery 14 Everywhen Art at Whistlewood 15 Geelong Art Space 16 Geelong Gallery 17 Gippsland Art Gallery 18 Hamilton Art Gallery 19 The Hive Gallery 20 Horsham Regional Gallery 21 Latrobe Regional Gallery 22 La Trobe Art Institute 23 Liminal Gallery + Lab 24 Maffra Exhibition Space 25 Mildura Arts Centre 26 Platform Arts 27 QDOS Art Gallery 28 Post Office Gallery Art Academy 29 Pt. Leo Estate 30 RACV Goldfields Resort 31 Ross Creek…